BBC Education
BBC Education
Religious Education (Philosophy and Ethics)
Curriculum Intent:
Our aim is to provide an interesting curriculum that introduces students to relevant issues in religion, philosophy and ethics. We will cover a diverse range of religious beliefs and philosophical approaches to benefit our students’ personal development and awareness of significant issues in modern society. We promote SMSC development across our schemes of work. British values are explored and the importance of respecting the views of others is prioritised.
We want our students to enjoy their learning and to encourage them to have an open mind in understanding and appreciating different world views as well as communicating themselves efficiently. We want our students to be reflective and critically evaluate their own viewpoints in order to foster a full awareness of self and the importance of engaging with others especially when differences are discovered.
RE at the Burgate School follows the locally agreed syllabus, ‘Living Difference’. Students have opportunities to learn about living faiths and how people following different beliefs actually live them out. In doing this students will appreciate how and why people live differently from each other.
We encourage students to:
Have REspect for other people’s ideas
CompaRE religions
InterpREt art, history, politics - religion affects them all
REspond to religion in their own way
REsearch what other people believe and why
ExpREss their own opinions and beliefs and share them with others
Search for the sacREd side of life
We support students in the development of their own values and principles and in their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
More about our courses in Religious Education (Philosophy and Ethics):
Be prepared to discuss broad ideas, explore the depth of human spirituality and respond to current events in the world in a philosophical way. To succeed, students should be prepared to explore current affairs and ask questions about the world... Is an act right? How should people be treated? Does God exist?
Students should read the news, engage in discussions at home and be prepared to encounter challenging ideas. A range of resources are available for free on YouTube/where you get your Podcasts, students will be pointed in these directions.
GCSE students follow the AQA course and are focusing on Christian and Buddhist perspectives.
A Level we follow the OCR specification taking the Christian Theology paper as our religious element.
Learning Explorations Year 9
Students will conduct explorations, this is where they will engage with and learn about key topics through the lens of RE (Philosophy and Ethics) which are not explicitly on the GCSE course. These topics include:
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Organised Crime
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Artificial Intelligence.
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Sociology
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Psychology
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Journalism
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Travel
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Sport
Students will ask key religious and philosophical questions about these topics, learning about areas which cross over with the GCSE content but also extend their knowledge and passion for the subject.
Parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious education and/or collective worship.
From age 16, pupils can choose for themselves to opt out of collective worship if they wish. However, they cannot opt out of receiving religious education without parental consent until they are 18.